This invention relates to improved multiple article beverage packages and more important to an improved, glued can-type package carrier designed for carrying larger quantities of cans such as twelve cans more or less as shown in the preferred embodiment.
It is known in the art of beverage carrier packages to provide a package having a bottom panel, a pair of side panels and a top panel all hingedly attached together with a handle formed in the top panel of the carrier and with end closure flaps being formed on each end of the carrier. The end closure flaps may be locked together by locking and latching flaps as shown in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,894,681, issued July 15, 1975 to E. L. Arneson et al and assigned to Federal Paperboard Company, Inc.
It is also known to provide dispensing features in packages such as beforementioned which are designed to be torn out of the end closure flaps of the package and partly out of the sides of the package so that one can may be removed from the package at a time. Since the package contains several cylindrical shaped cans stacked on top of each other within the package, it is foreseeable that when the tear-out dispensing feature is torn out of the package, that more than one can would tend to roll out of the package unless some means were used to retain them in the package.
Accordingly, in the beforementioned reference U.S. Pat. No. 3,894,681, there is provided a downwardly depending single leg formed from the tear-out feature in the end closure flap of the package which is utilized to retain the cans in the package until they are removed one at a time.
Such a retaining means, while sufficient for a locked and latched type carton as typified in the cited reference, would not necessarily be satisfactory for the Applicant's type of package as shown in the preferred embodiment which is not a locked and latched package but is a glued package having glued end closure panels. After removal of several cans in the package of the type shown in the beforementioned cited reference, it can be seen that the downwardly depending leg can be bent upwardly and may tend to lose its holding ability for the remainder of cans in the package.